Most of us have heard of an art car—a car that has had its appearance modified as an act of personal expression.1 But how many of us have heard of an art sax?
In April, I started this project at my friend’s shop. For the last 18 years, Lisa has owned Strung Out On Beads in downtown Abbotsford.
When I started beading this POS Chinese alto sax in April, neither Lisa nor I had any idea what this might look like when it was done. No one has ever beaded a musical instrument like this before—at least, not in Lisa’s shop, and not that anyone has written about on the Net either.
My art sax project started with the stripped-down, Century alto that had been hanging on my garden shed for nearly a year. Since I had never done any beading before, Lisa helped me get going by showing me how to fasten some wire with beads on the posts.
For an indecisive person like me, the hardest part during this entire art sax project was picking out the beads I wanted to use. Lisa’s inventory is so enormous, that there was no shortage of beads, glass, and crystal to pick from. In the end I opted for mostly clear glass or acrylic, because I wanted to put lighting in the inside of the horn.
Photography by H. Kahlke Copyright 2013
BTW, do you notice the uneven tone holes? (All the light coming out underneath the coloured glass discs and rings is a dead giveaway.) 😉
For lighting, I used 3M’s, 3 metre LED ribbon light. I bought mine at Home Hardware for way too much money. I found a longer one with programmable colour options, and a remote control, at Costco for about half the price. :bang: Needless to say, I picked one up there for my next project.
Yes, I do have more projects on the horizon. I have two more alto saxophones, a Bundy II and a King Cleveland, as well as a Amati bell and bow. Both of the horns are still mostly intact, so I’ll have more mechanics to work with than I did on this Century.
As for what these three projects will look like, stay tuned. I have broad-stroke concepts already, and have started to research where I might get the non-beading materials I need.
The tricked out, Century art sax is currently on display at Lisa’s shop. If you’d like to see it, you can find it at Strung Out On Beads, which is located at 33735 Essendene St. in downtown Abbotsford.
Getting back to the art car concept for a minute, check out this interesting VW Beetle. It is covered in over 2.5 million beads…
I’ll have to show this to Lisa. I think she’d find this very interesting. Now that would be one very interesting project to supply beads for.
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1 Source: Wikipedia page on art cars.
It’s a Christmas sax! My daughter really likes it. Sounds like a project for us in the future!
It could most certainly be a Christmas sax. Mine is still in Lisa’s shop. That was dumb of me. Now that you mention it, I should bring it home. We’re having our Christmas party here tomorrow night. It would look great all light up in our family room.
My vote goes for a Higher Form of Art. It’s Not just a lamp now. It’s form is light and reflection of light. And I LOVE the Skull! Gives it feeling of resurrection in a sense.
As for “Dressing Up the Big Girl” ? {Hope I get gender correct}
Let’s see: A Bead Shop> Semiprecious Stones already cut into cylinders (think Grassi Jade Rollers :wink:) Replace the Key Touch Pearls with Concave disks cut from malachite or some other colour spectrum. And that wouldn’t even involve any machine work on the horn At All!
Mmm… Interesting idea for the Buescher. It would make her look pretty alright.
As far as the skull goes, I ended up with 3 of them on the sax. One clear red glass one; 1 very obvious one near where the octave mechanism used to be; and also one monkey skull, right around the B/A tone hole area of the horn.
In my selection of what to put where on this horn, I thought about the “evolution” of this sax, so the 2 white skulls (monkey & human) in close proximity are symbolic. 🙂
Hi Helen,
This is an interesting post.
The thing about an art car is that it is still a car that can be driven.
To date, most “art saxes” have been decorated with engravings, precious metals, or plating—Johnny Hodge’s alto and Don Byas’s tenor with their serpents’ heads on the speaker key spring immediately to mind.
So, how would you decorate your Buescher bass? Inquiring minds want to know!
Peace,
paul
OK, good point Paul. But I’d make the argument that this POS was really never playable at all, which is why it had its bits striped down as replacement parts for other horns. So in effect, it’s been reincarnated as a higher life-form. 😈
But what exactly? Is it a sculpture? Or perhaps its a light?
How would I decorate my bass? Mmmm… Let me see…. I think that new, programmable LED new ribbon light from Costco would be fun. Then I could give the remote control to someone in the audience. 💡 That kind of interaction would be especially interesting if each change of colour brought a different song or riff out of the bass. Talk about audience participation. :cheers: